I know things are still getting sorted out but when I first got a news notice over the weekend I figured it was a crush incident.
Those old enough will remember a Who concert in (I think) Cincinnati where the entry doors were mostly closed and the crowd crushed and killed a number of people. A couple of years later I was in a near crush incident with my GF at a Dire Straits concert (Brothers in Arms) in Stuttgart, Germany where we were lucky to get out unhurt. They had festival seating and that was the last time I have gone to any large event with festival seating.
When you have literally thousands of people pushing ever forward to a stage and you are trapped up close to the front the danger is very real. The pressure was so great it lifted us and all around us up off the ground- off our feet - which is as disturbing as you could imagine. I held her hand and when I got my feet down we got up off the Schleyer Halle floor and sat in the regular (cheaper) seats. Nobody was killed that night but there were many injured and many more scared out of their wits.
When you have literally thousands of people pushing ever forward to a stage and you are trapped up close to the front the danger is very real. The pressure was so great it lifted us and all around us up off the ground- off our feet - which is as disturbing as you could imagine. I held her hand and when I got my feet down we got up off the Schleyer Halle floor and sat in the regular (cheaper) seats. Nobody was killed that night but there were many injured and many more scared out of their wits.
Even a small pileup or domino effect of 10 people can create hundreds of pounds of pressure; in a huge crowd where everyone is packed in like sardines it can be thousands of pounds.
It's no surprise that large festivals will overlap multiple popular acts to reduce crowding and keep people moving. Hopefully Live Nation will be able to improve their crowd management and safety protocols and thereby save lives; we may also see more calls to ban festival seating entirely:
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Those old enough will remember a Who concert in (I think) Cincinnati where the entry doors were mostly closed and the crowd crushed and killed a number of people. A couple of years later I was in a near crush incident with my GF at a Dire Straits concert (Brothers in Arms) in Stuttgart, Germany where we were lucky to get out unhurt. They had festival seating and that was the last time I have gone to any large event with festival seating.
When you have literally thousands of people pushing ever forward to a stage and you are trapped up close to the front the danger is very real. The pressure was so great it lifted us and all around us up off the ground- off our feet - which is as disturbing as you could imagine. I held her hand and when I got my feet down we got up off the Schleyer Halle floor and sat in the regular (cheaper) seats. Nobody was killed that night but there were many injured and many more scared out of their wits.
It's no surprise that large festivals will overlap multiple popular acts to reduce crowding and keep people moving. Hopefully Live Nation will be able to improve their crowd management and safety protocols and thereby save lives; we may also see more calls to ban festival seating entirely:
"These types of horrific situations will continue to occur until festival seating and concert[s] are again banned forever.”
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/11/08/astroworld-festival-houston-reminds-of-cincinnati-the-who-concert-1979/6337647001/